Congress slams Jaitley after Mallya says he met him

The political battle over Vijay Mallya's yesterday's claim of meeting Union Minister Arun Jaitley raged since morning, with the BJP alleging that it was the Congress and the Gandhi family who were close to the fugitive liquor baron.

In a statement issued on Facebook, the Finance Minister said that Mallya's statement is "factually false". So, obviously the comments are referring his meeting with Arun Jaitley. "Besides this one sentence exchange where he misused his privilege as an RS member, in order to further his commercial interest as a bank debtor, there is no question of my having ever given him an appointment to meet me", Jaitley concluded.

Jaitley has vehemently denied the charge, saying he never gave Mallya any appointment.

Screenshots were in circulation of the June 12, 2018, tweet in which he had said: "Mallya could not escape from India because of a strong Look Out Notice for him at airports".

At a press conference minutes later, Rahul Gandhi said one of its leaders had witnessed Arun Jaitley and Vijay Mallya having a discussion in parliament just two days before the fugitive tycoon's flight to the UK. "I did not even receive the papers that he was holding in his hand". "My conscience is clear and (I) put nearly Rs15,000 crore worth of assets on the table of the Karnataka High Court", he said. However, he left to United Kingdom without paying bank debts and Government of India's plans of extradition didn't work out yet.

It argues Mallya, who moved to Britain in March 2016, had no intention of repaying money it borrowed from IDBI in 2009 and the loans had been taken out under false pretences, on the basis of misleading securities and with the money spent differently to how the bank had been told.

On 26 February, SBI, the lead bank in the consortium, approaches the Bangalore DRT seeking the arrest of Mallya, first right on his $75 million pay and impounding his passport, but the DRT postpones the case.

Mallya, who faces charges of defrauding banks to the tune of Rs 9,000 crore, said he did not file any clemency plea in the Karnataka High Court where he was ready to settle all dues. "The notice issued for Vijay Mallya was changed to the inform notice". The London court was hearing the closing arguments in the extradition case against Mallya on Wednesday, as well as review the video of jail cell prepared for him by the Indian authorities.

Jaitley probably owes another clarification on why he gave a major miss to Mallya's clue on the great escape to United Kingdom, the dream safe haven for a number of fraudsters.